KOREA

The US and South Korea will go ahead with military drills off the Korean peninsula despite the “Peace Olympics” and the recent thaw in North-South relations, the South’s defense ministry said in a report to the National Assembly.

In the run-up to the Olympic Games in PyeongChang, Seoul was able to convince Washington to delay the start of their annual winter/springtime joint military exercises until after the games. The temporary halt to the annual Foal Eagle/Key Resolve US-South Korea joint military exercises allowed North and South Korea to develop a dialogue that the South hopes will ease the mounting tension in the region.

South Korea and the United States will announce plans before April for joint military drills that had been postponed until after the Winter Olympics and Paralympics, South Korea’s defense minister said on Tuesday.

Two weeks ago, followers of geopolitics couldn't help but speculate about the chances of a clandestine meeting between North Korea and the US when the news first broke that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's younger sister, Kim Jo Yang, would be attending the Winter Games in PyeongChang.

After all, US Vice President Mike Pence was already confirmed to be stopping by South Korea during the beginning of the Games as part of a five-day Asia tour. But the White House was quick to repudiate this chatter, announcing that there were no plans for diplomatic talks, though both US and North Korean rhetoric since then has left the door open for such a meeting.

But as it turns out, just as the White House was denying it, plans for talks were being set in motion, according to the Washington Post, which reported Tuesday evening that the North Koreans backed out of a meeting with Pence at the last minute.

But in a shocking development that's almost guaranteed to contribute to speculation about whether any foul play was involved, the Wall Street Journal reports that one of the country's top crypto regulators was found dead Tuesday.

While some speculated that the cause of death was a heart attack, the official statement - so far - is that the cause of death remains"unknown."

Semiofficial news agency Yonhap reported that Mr. Jung was presumed to have suffered a heart attack and police had opened an investigation into the cause of death. Yonhap also reported that Mr. Jung was found at home. The government spokesman said later that “he died from some unknown cause. He passed away while he was sleeping and [his] heart [had] already stopped beating when he was found dead.”

His death comes barely a month after the country's regulators appeared to settle on a suitable regulatory framework: Crypto exchanges and banks will soon be required to collect customers' names and information.

North Korea is quietly expanding both the scope and sophistication of its cyberweaponry, laying the groundwork for more devastating attacks, according to a new report published Tuesday.

Kim Jong Un’s cyberwarriors have been accused of causing huge disruption in recent years, including a massive hack on Sony Pictures in 2014 and last year’s WannaCry ransomware worm, as well as numerous attacks on South Korean servers.

Two senators who attended the Munich Security Conference over the weekend affirmed that the US has not developed a so-called "bloody nose" strategy to take out North Korea's nuclear arsenal - contrary to prior reports in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere.

"We are here to echo that there has not and has never been a bloody nose strategy," said Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island. Whitehouse said he and other lawmakers who attended the conference were briefed by National Security Adviser HR McMaster had briefed a Senate delegation in a secure annex of Congress before the group traveled to the Munich Security Conference, he said on Sunday in the Bavarian capital.

The media’s demonization of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, especially in the realm of American news, continues a pattern seen in years past. From Iraq to Venezuela, the corporate media’s depiction of inhabitants of foreign territories is meant to remove their autonomy and humanity, and this is exactly what’s happened in the case of North Korea.
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Yet countless articles depict North Korea’s Kim Jong-un as “a madman,” and U.S. politicians routinely characterize Kim as “crazy,” while pundits invade our television screens to openly fantasize about wiping North Korea off the map. As if they were talking about a piece of paper and not 25 million human beings.

With talk of a “bloody nose” strike against North Korea being debated in Washington, public attention has focused on conventional military preparations for a U.S. attack on Pyongyang. Less noticed, but possibly even more telling, is the surge in recent months of intelligence resources.

Senior officials have made no secret of the fact that the administration is ramping up its intelligence capabilities to focus on the Korean Peninsula, but six sources familiar with U.S. planning described a nearly unprecedented scramble inside the agencies responsible for spying and cyber warfare.

In fact, the initial strike against the North Korean regime could be digital rather than physical, according to two former intelligence officials with knowledge of the preparations.

NORTH KOREA will continue to feel "firm and strong" pressure from the United States Government until despotic leader Kim Jong-un agrees to shut down his dangerous weapons development programme, US Vice President Mike Pence warned.

Meanwhile, China, which produces nearly half of the world’s steel, is accused of flooding the market in order to keep its economy robust at home.

“I will make a decision that reflects the best interests of the United States, including the need to address overproduction in China and other countries,” Trump said.

“They’re dumping and destroying our industry, and destroying the families of workers, and we can’t let that happen,” he added.

Although the president has another two months to make a decision on possible penalizing action, he strongly indicated that he wants to punish Beijing.

Experts, however, say that any such action will prompt China to do the same, raising the specter of a trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

Trump is under pressure at home as he has not been able to deliver on his campaign promise of being a champion of America’s Rust Belt.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Upon reading this, I am having a double Picard face-palm, at warp speed.

After really needing nore cooperation with China on the issue of North Korea's nuclear program, and desperate to convince South Korea that Kim Jung Un's overtures to South Korea were really just theatrics, President Trump's timing of these threats against China and South Korea just possibly could have been worse: I just don't know how.

US Pacific Commander Admiral Harry Harris, testifying Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee, accused North Korea of making its recent military advances exclusively with an eye toward forcibly unifying the Korean Peninsula “under a single communist system.”

Admiral Harris scorned the idea that North Korea had gotten nuclear arms to try to protect North Korea from a US-imposed regime change, saying he believes Kim’s ambitions are to “blackmail the South and other countries in the region, and us.”

He was led into this answer by Committee chair Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX), who said the only reason anyone believes Kim is getting the weapons for deterrence is because “alternatives are too terrible to contemplate.”

But Admiral Harris seemed fine echoing this view, despite North Korea being very public about deterrence being a top priority, and despite North Korea’s recent diplomatic overtures making no sense at all if Kim’s exclusive goal is to conquer South Korea.

Webmaster's Commentary:

US Pacific Commander Admiral Harris, a word, please.

If Kim invited South Korea's President Moon to Pyongyang, do you think for one minute Kim's goal is to hold him as his prisoner, in order to extract some kind of geopolitical "price" from South Korea, knowing that it would goad the US into some kind of retaliatory measures?!?

Admiral, Kim is many things; but irrational and unreasonable are not among them.

Regurgitating the old, tired US Deep State's propaganda on North Korea, as a narrative to justify invading it, cannot possibly sway the US populace to embrace such a decision; we have all had our fill of US-generated wars, which appear to be going nowhere; Afghanistan; Libya; Iraq; and Somalia come very quickly to mind, sir.

And I would like to politely remind you; we have lived with nuclear-armed governments which the US just has had a hard time liking, in any way, like Pakistan.

It has nuclear weapons, and even though it has now been put on the US "funds terrorist groups" Watch List, I seriously doubt we are going to invade that country any time soon.

And why?!?

Because it has nuclear weapons as a deterrent, Admiral: it is just that simple.

North Korea's Kim Jong Un said it is important to boost the "warm climate of reconciliation" after meeting with the delegation that returned to the North after visiting the South for the Winter Olympics, the North's state media said on Tuesday.

Kim Jong Un also expressed "satisfaction" over their visit and said efforts made by Seoul to prioritise their visit were "very impressive" including their "sincere efforts" for which he gave his gratitude, the Korean Central News Agency said.

As with North Korean media reports over the weekend, there was again no mention of the summit offer given to South Korean Moon Jae-in from Kim Jong Un via his younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, who was part of the delegation.

Kim Yo Jong delivered a letter from her brother at a visit to the South's presidential Blue House on Saturday, asking Moon to visit "at his earliest convenience" to which Moon replied both Koreas should try to make conditions that would make the visit possible.

The games have begun. The younger sister of North Korea’s ruler Kim Jong-un has captured the attention of the media, while US Vice President Mike Pence was mocked as a dud, even undiplomatic. The two Koreas are engaging each other. This makes the Washington foreign policy swamp fume.

North Korea won't give up its nukes, and Americans shouldn't fall for the regime's charm offensive, top intelligence told a Senate committee.

"North Korea continues to pose an ever-more increasing threat to the United States and its interests," Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee at the annual hearing on worldwide threats.

"Pyongyang has repeatedly stated that it does not intend to negotiate its nuclear weapons and missiles away," he added Tuesday.

The North Koreans sent athletes and a delegation to the Winter Olympics in South Korea, which included the North's ceremonial head of state and Kim's only sister, Kim Yo Jong. The North Korean dictatoralso invited South Korean President Moon Jae-in to visit the communist country for a summit.

Webmaster's Commentary:

"Don't you dare like people we tell to not to like!" -- Official White Horse Souse

On January 8, 2018, former government advisor Edward Luttwak wrote an opinion piece for Foreign Policy titled “It’s Time to Bomb North Korea.”

Luttwak’s thesis is relatively straightforward. There is a government out there that may very soon acquire nuclear-weapons capabilities, and this country cannot be trusted to responsibly handle such a stockpile. The responsibility to protect the world from a rogue nation cannot be argued with, and we understandably have a duty to ensure the future of humanity.

However, there is one rogue nation that continues to hold the world ransom with its nuclear weapons supply. It is decimating non-compliant states left, right, and center. This country must be stopped dead in its tracks before anyone turns to the issue of North Korea.

The Missile Defense Agency is rushing to put more solutions in the field and trying to put past failures behind them.

One of the smaller line items in the Missile Defense Agency’s $9.9 billion budget request for 2019 is also one of the most interesting: $66 million to keep developing a laser that can be mounted on a drone and used to destroy enemy missiles on the launch pad — or shortly after takeoff.

That amount includes $61 million to continue the laser-on-a-drone program, called the Low Power Laser Demonstrator, or LPLD, and $5 million to scale up its laser to sufficient destructive power.

Webmaster's Commentary:

In light of the fact that Kim Jong Un's Sister just handed a letter to South Korea's President Moon, inviting him to Pyongyang, is it just possible that such a weapon will not be needed, because it looks to me as though there is a distinct possibility of peace, and possibly, reunification, breaking out between the two Koreas?

Were I the chairperson of the committee with the power to approve this line item or not, I would certainly want to delay its implementation, to see what dimplomatic process evolves here, after the Winter Olympic Games, which are still in progress, and will not end until the 25th of this month.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in reportedly rejected a call from Japan to quickly resume joint US-Korean military drills. Moon has been invited to visit Pyongyang for what may become the first top-level summit in over a decade.
At a bilateral summit on Friday, Moon called on the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to wait before resuming the drills, Yonhap reported, citing a government official. The drills have been paused for the duration of the Winter Olympics, as part of Seoul’s attempt to mend relations with Pyongyang. North Korea considers the drills a major threat to its national security, saying they may be used to conceal a build-up for an invasion.

According to the report, Abe argued that the time to delay exercises scheduled for spring was not right and that Pyongyang had to change its behavior before receiving concessions.

Diplomacy at the Winter Olympics has been an event covered like no other, and while some media outlets are in awe at the amount of progress that, by most accounts, has been made, there are also a lot of naysayers casting doubt on whether it amounts to anything.

The official US position has been to simultaneously downplay the talks, and to make some fairly high-profile efforts to undermine them. That seems to have been picked up by a lot of analysts as gospel truth.

The historic visit by a North Korean delegation that included both the parliamentary president and the sister of Kim Jong Un, handshakes, talks, and an invitation to South Korean President Moon to visit North Korea, have all been shrugged off by many as some sort of combination of a North Korean trick to undermine US interests, and one officials insist will fail.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Both North and South Korean leadership want peace, even if the two Koreas cannot agree on a reunification process; the only International actor in the region which DOESN't appear to want want such peace to happen... is the United States.

And - at antiwar.com this morning, right underneath this breathless headline, come the following headlines:

Forgive me, Sec Def Mattis; it appears, as my late grandmother would say, "The Horse is Already Out of the Barn." on this issue.

And sir, the optics of any attempt to squelch this newfound ratcheting down of tensions between North and South Korea, are going to be perceived by the rest of the world, as a barbarically martial and repugnant on the part of the US government.

Washington is no longer opposed to the idea of talks with Pyongyang without preconditions, but still favors ramping up sanctions pressure against North Korea until it agrees to relinquish its nuclear arsenal, Mike Pence said.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has dismissed a call from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to quickly resume South Korea's joint military drills with the United States, calling it a violation of his country's sovereignty, an official from Seoul's presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said Saturday.
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Abe stressed the need for what he called an "actual" change in the North's behavior, saying it was not the right time for Seoul and Washington to delay their joint military exercises>>>>

North Korea has emerged as the early favourite to grab one of the Winter Olympics’ most important medals: the diplomatic gold.

That is the assessment of a former South Korean government minister and political experts who say the North has used the Games to drive a wedge between South Korea and its U.S. ally and to potentially ease pressure on its sanctions-crippled state.

In barely a month since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un surprised the world and said his nation was ready to join the Games, South Korean President Moon Jae-in has delayed military exercises, feted Kim’s sister at the Pyeongchang Olympics and given conditional consent to a bilateral summit in the North.

NBC has apologised after one its correspondents caused uproar in South Korea by saying that “every Korean” knows how important Japan, which occupied the peninsula for 35 years until 1945, has been in the country’s development.

The comments were made by NBC Winter Olympics Analyst Joshua Cooper Ramo during Friday’s opening ceremony; Koreans were not impressed. “Now representing Japan, a country which occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945. But every Korean will tell you that Japan is a cultural and technological and economic example that has been so important to their own transformation,” The Korea Times quotes Cooper Ramo as saying.

The comments infuriated many South Koreans, with some stating that they were akin to “advocating Nazi persecution of the Jews.” Another asked if NBC would thank Japan for the attacks on Pearl Harbour.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un invited South Korean President Moon Jae-in to Pyongyang "at an early date", South Korean officials said on Saturday, potentially setting up the first meeting of Korean leaders in more than 10 years.

Any meeting would represent a diplomatic coup for Moon, who swept to power last year on a policy of engaging more with the reclusive North.

Weeks of diplomatic efforts with North Korea have the South Korean government upbeat, and presenting the Winter Olympics as the next step toward even better bilateral ties, and new opportunities to come.

While the US had previously been loathe to publicly clash with South Korea about the matter, the fact that the diplomacy is ongoing is clearly irking the administration, and has them now openly taking an opposite position to the South.

Where South Korea sees opportunities to improve ties, Vice President Mike Pence is very clear that he sees an opportunity to worsen them. South Korea seeks sports diplomacy at the Winter Olympics, and Pence wants to use it as a pretext for more sanctions and acrimony.

This public split is casting a long shadow over the Olympic games, where South Korea will have to manage Pence’s visit while also trying to keep him from doing too much damage to their diplomatic efforts.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I am hopeful that the South Korean government does a successful job in "managing Pence's visit"; anyone with two braincells to rub together will see that it is obvious that officials from North and South Korea are having a reflective time, to see what can be done to mend relations, not further exacerbate them.

The Mainichi Shimbun reports that a body of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will try to draft a proposed revision of Article 9 of Japan’s pacifist constitution as early as this month.

The effort is in line with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s desire to define legally the existence of the country’s Self-Defense Forces (SDF) as part of the document.

Webmaster's Commentary:

If the Japanese Prime Minister is looking to get this passed before the end of this month (and folks, the end of February is only 19 days away), it does not augur well for peace between North Korea and her neighbors, particularly South Korea and Japan.

Timing, for getting this bill pushed through Japan's legislature before the end of the month is not accidental, and may well be telegraphing that the plans for an assault on North Korea in the early spring, perhaps March or April of this year, are close to getting greenlit.

I am hoping and praying that President Trump is listening to Sec Def Mattis on this one, and choses to avoid an outright military confrontation against North Korea; the aftermath could be more horrific than anyone can realise, and most likely, should the US govenment do a pre-emptive strike against North Korea, China will most likely side with North Korea militarily.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence made only a brief appearance at a reception marking the start of the Winter Olympics on Friday, avoiding a potentially awkward encounter with the ceremonial leader of North Korea attending the same event.

The US Army and Marine Corps recently announced their plan to roll out cold-weather gear for American ground forces in preparation for potential wars with North Korea and Russia as tensions continue to rise.

For decades, both the Army and Marine Corps have become accustomed to fighting in the deserts of the Middle East. However, both services are now getting ready to fight in the cold as Russian-American relations reach new lows and tensions between Washington and Pyongyang froth.

It is no secret that the Defense Department is preparing for possible preventive attacks on North Korean nuclear and missile facilities, supposedly intended to prevent the Kim Jong-un regime in Pyongyang from developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of delivering nuclear warheads to the continental United States. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster has openly called for strikes of this sort, sometimes described as the “bloody nose” option. But any such scenario faces two major hurdles: First, a US strike could provoke massive retaliation by the North against South Korea and Japan, producing vast numbers of civilian casualties; and second, it could fail to destroy all of the North’s nuclear and missile facilities, most of which are thought to be hidden in deep underground shelters.

Webmaster's Commentary:

President Trump, please listen to Sec Def Mattis on this issue.

I would like to politely remind you that this country has managed to get along with nuclear armed countries it doesn't particularly like, as is the case with Pakistan.

These missiles Kim Jung Un is developing are simply for reasons of deterrence, in order to prevent a military strike by the US.

Kim Jung Un is many things, but stupid is just not one of them.

He would never, in a million years, do a first strike against any US asset, because he understands, full well, that should he do that, the US would turn North Korea into a sea of molten glass with its counterstrike.

Also, a pre-emptive strike against North Korea would most probably drag China and Russia into the fray, no North Korea's side.

Is the US military really ready for such a battle?!? Sir, you had really better think this one through, and consult with people who won't lie to you just to make you happy, before you give the order to do this.

Are you ready for nuclear attack warning sirens in your community? I live in the State of Hawaii, which decided in December 2107 to begin monthly nuclear attack warning siren drills, similar to the monthly tsunami warning sirens that are tested each month.

You know what happened – an employee of the State of Hawaii Emergency Management Department pushed the wrong button, setting off the siren, and no one alerted the public for nearly 49 minutes that it was a drill. Cell phone alerts to everyone in the 808 area code flashed “Nuclear attack warning-take cover,” with residents and tourists alike going into crisis mode.

Then why the hell is Pence going here?!? What is he doing, except potentially attempting to "shake down" other countries which might still be trading with North Korea?!?

That there is no intention of speaking with North Korean officials by the US officials traveling here, means that this is another wasted opportuntiy; and the US cannot afford many more wasted opportunities here with which it could potentially avert the military confrontation it has been threatening to use, most likely drawing Russia and China into the fray as well.

This country's leadership has managed, to work with nuclear armed countries it sometimes loves, like Israel, and sometimes, grudgingly, has a "frenemy" relationship with those countries it doesn't particularly like; Pakistan comes to mind here.

But a military option, which will potentially leave thousands upon thousands of both North and South Koreans dead, or maimed for life, is absolutely not the road of moral high ground here, simply because it is something the US government can do.

Someone needs to politely remind the President of this reality, and soon; because I don't believe that his unholy Triumverate of "President Whisperers", consisting of Mattis, Kelly, and McMaster is making this side of the military equation clear to him at all.

***"The United States of America will soon unveil the toughest and most aggressive round of economic sanctions on North Korea ever – and we will continue to isolate North Korea until it abandons its nuclear and ballistic missile programs once and for all,” Pence said

Charm offensive: 200+ N. Korean cheerleaders arrive at Olympics to be followed by Kim’s sister
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A squad of 229 cheerleaders arrived in South Korea on Wednesday as a part of a 280-strong Pyongyang’s delegation, which is seen as one of the largest recent border crossings between the two Koreas. The women all clad in red coats and fur hats greeted crowds of journalists as they arrived at the four-star luxury hotel in Inje, some two hours’ drive from the Olympic venue in PyeongChang, where the Games are to kick off on Friday

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Kim Jong-un’s younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, is to attend the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, Pyongyang announced on Wednesday. Kim Yo-jong is the youngest of the late leader Kim Jong-il’s three children and has not been in the spotlight. Kim’s sister being included in the delegation is a “meaningful” step, as she is a senior official at the ruling Workers' Party, Seoul's Unification Ministry said in a statement.

On Tuesday, the arrival of a 140-strong North Korean orchestra to the port of Mukho on the west coast of South Korea was met by a small protest>>>

The director of Germany's domestic intelligence agency has accused North Korea of using their Berlin embassy to acquire and smuggle parts for their missile and nuclear weapons programs.

"We determined that procurement activities have been carried out from [the embassy] that are, in our view, done with a view to the missile program and sometimes also for the nuclear program," said Hans-Georg Maassen, head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany's domestic intelligence agency.

In a Monday interview with public broadcaster NDR, Maassen said that his agency attempted to stop weapons smuggling through the embassy. "When we see such things, we stop them. But we cannot guarantee that we spot and block each attempt," said Maassen.

China is reportedly moving missile defense batteries and troops closer to its border with North Korea, a potential sign that Beijing anticipates either a large refugee wave north or a military disturbance triggered by the belligerence of communist dictator Kim Jong-un.

The South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo cited Radio Free Asia (RFA) in a report Monday, stating that RFA had compiled evidence that China had “late last year deployed another missile defense battery at an armored division in Helong, west of Longjing in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture.”

The “North Korean source in China” speaking to RFA also noted that Pyongyang had observed the movement of 300,000 troops closer to the North Korean border and “missile defense batteries near North Korean reservoirs by the Apnok and Duman rivers.” The batteries would prevent the violent outpouring of those reservoirs into China in the event of an airstrike.

A 140-member arts troupe from North Korea plans to travel to South Korea this week by ferry, forcing the South to temporarily lift its ban on all North Korean ships entering its waters, officials said on Monday.

The arts troupe, comprising orchestra musicians, dancers and singers, will arrive in South Korea on Tuesday on board the ferry Mangyongbong-92, said Baik Tae-hyun, a spokesman at the Unification Ministry, a South Korean government agency in charge of relations with North Korea.

North Korea also notified the South that the ship would serve as lodging for the artists, a move apparently designed to keep them from having contact with South Koreans. When North Korea agreed last month to participate in the Winter Olympics in the South Korean city of Pyeongchang, it also agreed to send the troupe as part of Olympic-related cultural events.

What has led to a rapprochement between North Korea and South Korea, a greater likelihood of reunification of the Korean Peninsula and greater chances of peace in the region? The empty threats of Donald Trump, who behaves like a spoiled child, or the strategy of armed diplomacy of Kim Jong Un?

The answer lies in the fact that, while North Korea did not stop its nuclear tests, even with the empty words of the American government, it simultaneously achieved the great diplomatic achievement of "reunifying" the country for participation in the Winter Olympics.

This is an important step towards peace, which shows the US that they are not needed as "global police". More than that. During the recent crisis caused by American interventionism on the Korean Peninsula, the South Korean people and even their politicians criticized the conduct of US foreign policy.

South Koreans are more afraid of the US than of North Korea. With their threats and provocations>>>

Vice-president Mike Pence will stop North Korea “hijacking” the Winter Olympics, an aide said on Sunday, by using his own presence at the Games to remind the world “everything the North Koreans do at the Olympics is a charade to cover up the fact that they are the most tyrannical and oppressive regime on the planet”.

Such rhetoric stands at odds with recent diplomatic exchanges between North and South Korea. The two countries will march under one flag at the Games, which begin in Pyeongchang on Friday.

Wearing a blue logo of a map symbolising peace between North and South Korea, the most talked-about team at the Winter Olympics was in action on Sunday in a friendly that drew thousands of spectators.

The two countries’ female ice hockey players, who only began practising together as a team about a week ago, showed plenty of fight in their first competitive match but never really threatened world no. 5 Sweden who beat them 3-1 in Incheon, South Korea. Korea will play Sweden again on 12 February during the tournament proper.

The outcome didn’t seem to matter to the capacity crowd of 3,000 at the Seonhak International ice rink. Fans waved miniature flags showing a unified Korean peninsula, chanted “we are one” and screamed whenever their team went on the attack.

The United States says it will continue modernizing its nuclear deterrent in the face of a changed international atmosphere. The developments come as Pyongyang slams Washington for fomenting tensions with the increase of nuclear military deployments despite the thaw in relations between the two Koreas. Press TV’s correspondent, Frank Smith reports from Seoul.

In a programme which will be aired on German television on Monday, BfV head Hans-Georg Maassen said: “We determined that procurement activities have been carried out from there that are, in our view, done with a view to the missile programme and sometimes also for the nuclear programme.”

Comments released by a German broadcaster ahead of Monday have shown that Mr Maassen did say that German authorities had prevented such activities when they found them.

However, he added: “We can’t guarantee that we can detect and prevent this in all cases.”

The Trump administration has signaled that North Korea would be crossing a red line if it developed nuclear capability for its intercontinental ballistic missile program. Yet some policy officials and military experts claim that North Korea has already crossed that line, or is at least very close to attaching nuclear warheads to its missiles.

Kissinger offered his thoughts on the impending “fork in the road,” in which the administration may consider pre-emptive military action or increasingly tighter sanctions against the regime.

North Korea violated United Nations sanctions to earn nearly $200 million in 2017 from banned commodity exports, according to a confidential report by independent UN monitors, which also accused Pyongyang of supplying weapons to Syria and Myanmar.

The report to a UN Security Council sanctions committee, seen by Reuters on Friday, said North Korea had shipped coal to ports, including in Russia, China, South Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam, mainly using false paperwork that showed countries such as Russia and China as the coal origin, instead of North Korea.

The White House is reportedly pressing the Pentagon to provide more options for different plans for attacking North Korea militarily. Officials are said to be frustrated by the limited choices offered by the Pentagon, and want more different options.

Said to be at the head of this push for more options is National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, who is telling President Trump that for his repeated threats to attack North Korea to be credible, the US needs to have even more plans to attack them.

Pentagon officials are said to be averse to providing any more options than they already had, saying they believe the White House is scrambling to hastily toward war in the first place. They say the more options they give Trump, the bigger the risk he’d use one.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Mr. President, a word please; you have exasperated the patience of thinking, peace-centric Americans with your fixation on North Korea.

President Trump, it is painfully obvious that the Candidate Trump those of you who supported you thought we were actually getting, is not the President Trump we have.

Somehow, it appears that you have, indeed become one with the "Dark Side of the Force", and have been thoroughly overtaken, philosophically, by that unholy triumverate of Mc Master, Kelly, "your President Whisperers".

And most generally, these gentlemen tend to see war as the only option with which to resolve this country's geopolitical differences.

And to the Pentagon officials who are uncomfortable about giving the President more options on North Korea, and are calling for restraint and caution, bravo!

I do not believe in 68 years of existence on this planet, that I have ever had anything remotely positive to say about the Pentagon; however, that being said, in this instance, I feel compelled to say that this was a sound decision on their part.

They know full well that such an act may well threaten a world war, pitting North Korea, China, and Russia, against the US and NATO.

And the US military is absolutely not ready for such a war; they do not have the money, manufacturing, troop strength, or weaponry to insure a positive outcome here.

We have lived with nuclear powers we may not well like much, like India and Pakistan; but that is just the point.

Kim Jong Un is developing his weapons, and nuclear capabilities as a deterrent only; the guy is many things, but one of them is not stupid.

He fully understands that should he attack the US or any of its assets, North Korea would be turned into molten glass by a US-lead counterstrike.

A US missile defense test carried out in Hawaii was unsuccessful, according to officials.
A SM-3 Block IIA missile was launched from an Aegis Ashore test site in Hawaii, but failed to shoot down an incoming dummy missile launched from an aircraft, an official told Reuters. CNN also reported on the failure, ?iting several administration officials.

The missile is developed by the Raytheon Co and is used to target intermediate range missiles. It’s being worked on jointly with Japan.
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The Pentagon has not publicly acknowledged the failure>>>
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North Korea, meanwhile, has ramped up its missile test launches. In September, it carried out its sixth and most powerful nuclear test yet.

During his first State of the Union address Wednesday, president Donald Trump said Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile program could “very soon” pose an acute danger to the US.

While he said he agrees with the aggressive statements President Trump has fired at North Korea, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger warned Congress last week against potential military intervention near Russian and Chinese borders without the world’s support.

The Trump administration has signaled that North Korea would be crossing a red line if it developed nuclear capability for its intercontinental ballistic missile program. Yet some policy officials and military experts claim that North Korea has already crossed that line, or is at least very close to attaching nuclear warheads to its missiles.

Kissinger offered his thoughts on the impending “fork in the road,” in which the administration may consider pre-emptive military action or increasingly tighter sanctions against the regime.

“Racial discrimination and misanthropy are serious maladies inherent to the social system of the US, and they have been aggravated since Trump took office,” according to the “White Paper on Human Rights Violations in the US in 2017”, issued by the North's Institute of International Studies and circulated via the country's diplomatic mission in Geneva on Wednesday, presstv reported. “The racial violence that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12 is a typical example of the acme of the current administration’s policy of racism,” it added. The paper was referring to a bout of violence that took place following a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and ensuing clashes with anti-racist counter-protesters, which claimed the lives of three people and injured some 20 more.

Last week we noted the surge in North Korean officials ransacking homes and raiding farms in order to feed their starving army, and now North Korea's armed forces have reportedly scaled back their winter military exercises, which US officials have cited as a sign that the economic pressures brought by international sanctions are finally finding success, according to the Wall Street Journal - though North Korea has carried on a brisk black-market business with many countries, including China, despite these restrictions.

South Korea recently agreed to suspend military exercises until April after the warring neighbors agreed to a detente ahead of the Winter Games in PyeongChang. In one of the most significant gestures of unity between the two countries in decades, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed to field a joint women's field hockey team at the upcoming games.

The delivery of oil and oil products to North Korea should not be reduced, Moscow's ambassador to Pyongyang was cited as saying by RIA news agency on Wednesday, adding that a total end to deliveries would be interpreted by North Korea as an act of war.

The U.N. and United States have introduced a wave of sanctions aimed at curbing North Korea's development of nuclear weapons, including by seeking to reduce its access to crude oil and refined petroleum products.

"We can't lower deliveries any further," Russia's envoy to Pyongyang, Alexander Matzegora, was quoted by RIA as saying in an interview.

Quotas set by the U.N. allow for around 540,000 tonnes of crude oil a year to be delivered to North Korea from China, and over 60,000 tonnes of oil products from Russia, China and other countries, he was quoted as saying.

The American threats against North Korea continue to mount and with them the threat of the genocide of the people of North Korea by the United States of America and its allies. The meeting of the USA, Canada and other nations that attacked North Korea in 1950 held in Vancouver, Canada, on January 16, which some hoped would lead to a political solution, instead took on the character of a meeting of criminals who by their presence, agreement and actions made them parties to a conspiracy to commit genocide, a crime under the statute of the International Criminal Court and the Genocide Convention of 1948. The threats made against North Korea are due to one single fact: the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea refuses to accept the world hegemony of the American Empire. It has nothing to do with nuclear weapons...

In an interview with the BBC on Monday, CIA Director Mike Pompeo said that his agency was concerned that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may be mere months away from having full nuclear capabilities, able to launch a missile at any target in the US in the very near future.

"We are mindful that Kim Jong-un continues to present a risk not only to the United States but to the world," said Pompeo.

Webmaster's Commentary:

That is a pretty silly statement when you recall that the only nation to ever actually use a nuclear weapon on the civilians of another country is the United States!

Super flu outbreaks are ravaging the Korean Peninsula less than two weeks before the Winter Olympics — leaving North Korea scrambling to treat more than 81,000 people infected with swine flu as the South kills off nearly 1 million chickens to contain the bird flu on its side of the border.

Nearly 127,000 North Koreans were reported to have flu-like illness between Dec. 1 and Jan. 16, with 81,640 cases testing positive for Influenza A/H1N1, also commonly known as swine flu, the World Health Organization said in a report released Friday.